Remarks · 5 February 2024
Your Excellency, Andrzej Duda, President of the Republic of Poland, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to have the opportunity to be here with you at this appropriately timed High-Level Economic Dialogue and to join His Excellency President Andrzej Duda in making a few remarks before this distinguished gathering.
President Duda and I have just concluded bilateral discussions at State House, where we both celebrated the achievements made by our nations over 60 years of diplomatic relations, culminating in His Excellency’s state visit - an immense honour to the people and government of Kenya.
It is useful to recall that Kenya and the Republic of Poland established what have turned out to be deep, warm and close bilateral relations at the dawn of our independence. Ever since, our engagements have defined the dimensions of a highly promising partnership which we feel, is now ready to enter the phase of transformational collaboration based on complementarity and solidarity.
Consequently, our discussions covered a broad range of opportunities for strategic partnership, from trade and investment, and agriculture and food security, to information technology and labour mobility, all the way to climate action, peace and security, as well as cooperation in regional and multilateral fields.
His Excellency President Duda and I are firmly united in the understanding that the fundamental objective of all these endeavours is to actualise the promise of stability, security, wellbeing and shared prosperity for our people through inclusive economic transformation by creating the necessary conditions for wealth creation, generation of employment opportunities, eradication of poverty and reduction of inequality on a sustainable basis.
For this to happen, governments must be intentional about creating the necessary conditions for the private sector to mobilise adequate resources for trade and investment in every sector of the economy, in order to enhance productivity, industrialization, competitiveness and technological advancement.
I am proud to confirm that the partnership between Kenya and Poland fully meets these requirements. We are quite fortunate in the sense that each of our countries is abundantly endowed with what the other requires, and that we have a sound bilateral foundation for mutual benefit through strong complementarity. Following our discussions, the president and I witnessed the signing of 3 memorandums of understanding between Kenya and Poland in the fields of finance, water management and agriculture.
These MOUs build on the achievements we have made in creating a highly attractive business environment and investment climate, which have elevated Kenya’s rankings on various indexes, and facilitated a steady influx of investors into our market.
We have therefore instituted instruments to secure opportunities for Polish entrepreneurs and investors in our priority agroindustrial value chains, machinery assembly and technology, water supply and irrigation infrastructure.
It is therefore equally appropriate that at this High-Level Economic Dialogue, we shall witness the signing of an important instrument that shall go a long way in delivering our common objective of facilitating optimal trade and investment between Kenya and Poland.
The first, between KenInvest and the Polish Investment and Trade Agency, was signed in September 2023. It basically creates a powerful bilateral one-stop shop to support businesses in setting up and operating in each country, and navigating the respective regulatory environments.
This dialogue is a golden opportunity to share with you the compelling reasons which make Kenya an irresistible trade and investment destination for Polish businesses. First of all, our bottom-up economic transformation agenda identifies agriculture and food security as a key and strategic pillar for rapid economic growth due to its role as the driver of exports, biggest direct and indirect employer, driver of national manufacturing capacity and significant contributor to the GDP, as well as its immense potential to deliver much more with appropriate strategic interventions and investments. The opportunities for investment in various value chains are immense and Polish firms are advantageously placed to utilize them.
We also look towards Polish enterprises to set up machinery assembly plants here in Kenya to support the mechanization of agriculture and post-harvest value addition. We also recognize the high demand, both in Poland and in Europe generally, for various types of produce farmed in Kenya including tea, coffee, fresh cut flowers, avocado, as well as other types of horticultural produce. These are all important opportunities for rewarding investments to power the transformation of our economy.
To permanently put behind us the vulnerability to devastating droughts and other climatic changes, we have resolved to liberate our agriculture and livestock sectors from dependence on rain precipitation as the primary source of water. Consequently, the development of water storage and supply infrastructure is a critical priority for us, which calls for the implementation of public-private partnerships to build large dams and other types of reservoirs in various parts of the country.
These and other opportunities in other sectors are the subjects which should capture the attention of the esteemed delegates in attendance at this High-Level dialogue today. What is more, there is another, equally important reason for Polish investors to consider setting up their enterprises in Kenya.
Owing to its advantageous geostrategic location, Kenya is a favoured regional and continental logistical, trade, commercial, multilateral, security and humanitarian hub. Many leading multinational corporations, international organisations, aid and relief agencies have their headquarters here in Nairobi for the simple reason that we are ideally situated to facilitate the growth of corporate and industrial footprints throughout our region and all over the continent.
We are served by a dense network of well-developed road infrastructure, together with rail, pipeline, fibre optic and sea and airports which make transport and communications globally competitive.
As a consequence, Kenya is rightly identified as the gateway to a vast regional and continental market that is bustling with opportunities. The East African Community is a market of 400 million, while the Tripartite Trade Area incorporating the EAC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern Africa Development Community is a market of 700 million. The Africa continental free Trade Area for its part offers investors a market of 1.4 billion people. The best place from which to launch into these vast opportunities is right here in Kenya.
Additionally, our country boasts globally recognized highly skilled, well-trained, and educated young people who have earned a fine reputation both locally and abroad. We rely on this exceptional human resource endowment to support investors in staying competitive across various sectors.
Kenya is a global champion of climate action and recently hosted the inaugural Africa Climate Summit where African leadership spoke to the urgency of undertaking radical changes in how we define and implement development to conform with climate action. Consequently, we have advocated the mobilization and investment of unprecedented levels of resources into green growth in order to align economic development and shared prosperity with climate action.
We are on course to attract billions of dollars in green investments that will develop technologies, establish industries and support supply chains dedicated to the decarbonisation of global manufacturing and the realization of green growth. Africa will therefore become the next frontier of global industrial development. Kenya has already taken the lead in this direction, making us the destination of choice for forward-looking investors.
There are many reasons why you are at the right place at the right time. I have shared a few with you. I am certain that this High-Level Dialogue will inaugurate sustained engagements around many more.
I am delighted to announce, therefore, that today is the beginning of a historic journey between Kenya and Poland as we embark in solidarity on a quest to unlock unprecedented opportunities to achieve economic transformation for shared prosperity. I urge you to apply yourselves fully in order to reap the maximum benefits out of this relationship.
I wish you all fruitful deliberations and look forward to positive outcomes for all involved. Thank you. God bless you.